Wauchope Retires As Disorders Flare Anew; Jew Slain

March 1, 1938

JERUSALEM (Feb. 28)

After six years of trying to reconcile Arabs and Jews, Lieut.-Gen. Sir Arthur Grenfell Wauchope at midnight tonight relinquished the position of British High Commissioner and made his exit from the Palestine drama amid continuing disorders that took another Jewish Life today.

Sir Arthur broadcast a farewell message to the country this evening through the Government-owned Palestine Broadcasting Service. He declared that the last two years would stand out in history as years of difficulty and disappointment, but cited the Arab proverb, “Patience is the key of relief.” He concluded his message by asserting: “The best hope for this country rests in reliance on England.”

The retiring High Commissioner will leave for Egypt tomorrow. The new High Commissioner, Sir Harold Alfred MacMichael, former Governor of Tanganyika Territory, left London last Thursday and is expected to arrive here early in March, prepared to stamp out terrorism with an iron hand.

Appraising the administration of Wauchope, the fourth British High Commissioner for Palestine and Transjordan since 1920, Arab newspapers declared editorially today that his rule was a failure because his efforts for Arab-Jewish peace had proved ineffectual.

Four Arabs ambushed and killed a Jewish mukhtar (local chief) of the Juarrah settlement near Mishmar Haemek in the Jezreel Valley. The mukhtar, Abraham Goldschlager, was shot a quarter of a mile from Juarrah.

Goldschlager’s companion, Joseph Eisenberg, a Canadian citizen, escaped and notified Ghaffir (auxidary police) of the attack. They rushed to the spot and found Goldschlager’s body, his clothing looted, his revolver stolen and no trace of the assailants. The victim, who came here from Poland 17 years ago, left a wife, two children and his father, who live at Juarrah.

British military forces continued their campaign against Arab terrorism. The Haifa military court sentenced a Lebanese Arab woman, Hannia Abu Ahmed, to ten years’ imprisonment for carrying arms in violation of emergency regulations. Several Arabs were arrested in Nablus under the regulations, and searches for others were continuing.

British troops were reported to be continuing a six-day-old blockade of an Arab band at Jenin. They closed all roads and approaches to the area, tightening a vise on a band of 50 terrorists. Heavy rains and snow prevented them from closing in on the Arabs’ village and hillside hideouts.

While military forces coped with the immediate problem of Arab terrorism, Palestine prepared for the arrival in April of a four-man “Palestine Partition Commission,” which the British Government is sending here to investigate the possibilities of a permanent solution of the Holy Land situation by a three-way partition involving establishment of Arab and Jewish States. The names of three of the members were announced in the House of Commons in London today.

The Palestine Government, it was understood, has ordered district officers to prepare a new census of Arab and Jewish unemployment as of the end of February for the boundaries commission.